Thursday, July 12, 2012

The Booming Business of Testosterone

Strong like bull.
From CNBC:Wall Street's Secret Weapon for Getting an Edge

Traders on Wall Street are always looking to get an edge and pull ahead,
especially in this catch-a-falling knife market. The latest secret
weapon isn’t some complex trade or computer algorithm, it’s something
more primal — testosterone.

Testosterone has been blamed for many a bar
fight but for some aging traders and executives — and aging on Wall
Street means 30 and up — who feel these young kids breathing down their
necks and the economic screws tightening, say boosting their
testosterone levels has helped them get their edge back.

Testosterone
levels in men tend to be anywhere from 150 to 850 nanograms per
deciliter (ng/dL), depending on age and other factors. Testosterone
levels typically start to decline after age 30. For some men, as they
get older, those levels fall to 200 or below. "Low T" as its been
branded, has been attributed to that sluggish feeling, muscle aches,
belly fat, low stamina, low sex drive and lack of focus that many just
attribute to the aging process.

One
of the most widely known ads for Low T is of a shirtless 64-year-old
man whose head looks like a 64-year old, but whose ripped body looks
like that of a man half his age. That’s for a Las Vegas-based
mega-clinic called Cenegenics,
which has 20 centers and 20,000 patients in the U.S. They opened a Wall
Street clinic a year and a half ago in the Trump Building on Wall
Street. And, while some other businesses on Wall Street were floundering
during the recession, their business tripled. So much so that they’re
hiring more doctors and moving to a bigger space by year end.

Dr.
George Shapiro, the CEO and chief medical officer of the Wall Street
clinic, was a cardiologist for 20 years when he decided to seek
treatment from Cenegenics to get his energy, focus and muscle tone back.
After becoming a patient, he was such a believer, he joined Cenegenics
as a doctor to help other men — and a few women — who were similarly
struggling with symptoms most just chalked up to the aging process,
figuring there was nothing they could do about it....MORE